Railroad Pie

In the mid-19th century, most trains would stop for 20-30 minutes at mealtimes in whatever city or town they happened to be passing through. In the cities, competition between multiple eating establishments seems to have raised the quality of the food. However, the majority of these meal stops were made in places where hungry passengers had few options to choose from and a short time to do it. With no competition, one can only imagine the poor quality of food offered to captive passengers. Food historian James D. Porterfield describes the offered repasts:

James D. Porterfield, Dining by Rail:
The History and Recipes of America's
Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine

"These early eating stops were nearly always described as terrible. The bitter black coffee may have been brewed only once a week. The ham could be dry, salty, and tough. Hard-cooked eggs were stored for an indeterminate period of time in limed water to keep them from discoloring. Fried eggs may have been cooked in rancid grease and certainly were served on stale bread. Here also one found leaden biscuits--their nickname, 'sinkers', giving a clue as to their quality--and something which earned the euphemism 'railroad pie'. The recipe was thought to be to take two crusts of cardboard and fill them with thickened glue." (58) --John P. Hankey, "Riding on the Rail,"  Rails Across America: A History of Railroads in North America, quoting James D. Porterfield's Dining by Rail: The History and the Recipes of America's Golden Age of Railroad Cuisine

Traveling at "the heady speed of 18mph"

In 1830, Peter Cooper, a New York businessman, invested in an experimental steam locomotive, the Tom Thumb, to prove that steam power was a viable option for moving passengers and goods by rail. Investors in the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad believed that the sharp curves on their tracks precluded the use of a steam locomotive.

A 1927 replica of the locomotive "Tom Thumb."
(From: Wikipedia)

"Cooper set out to prove them wrong. His engine, assembled by a team of Baltimore mechanics, weighed about one ton, and was not much larger than a railroad handcar. The locomotive boasted a vertical, multi-tubular boiler, a single cylinder, drive gears, and rode on the 'friction wheels' designed by Ross Winans, who compared the engine's power favorably to the Rocket [a British steam locomotive predating the Tom Thumb]. With Cooper at the controls, the engine managed to achieve the heady speed of 18 mph; some of the passengers pulled out notebooks and wrote down their thoughts to prove that human beings could function normally at such high velocities." (10) --James D. Dilts, "The Early Days," Rails Across America: A History of Railroads in North America, William L. Withuhn, ed.

"Do Not Trust My Wife"

A notice placed in a Boston newspaper in January 1777: "I, John Whitehead, of Weston, for several Reasons, forbid all Persons trusting ANNA, my wife, any Thing whatsoever, on my Account; as I declare I will not pay any Debt she may contract after the Date hereof." --Richard C. Wiggin, "Embattled Farmers: Tracing Revolutionary Soldiers from Lincoln, Massachusetts," American Ancestors, Spring 2015 issue

Johnny Appleseed(s) of Pot

"By [the mid-1970s], the American backwoods were filling with self-styled Johnny Appleseeds sowing cannabis seeds far and wide as they dreamed of a new Utopia of the Stoned. (The phrase 'Johnny Appleseed of Pot' recently produced nearly ten thousand hits on Google.)" (268) --Howard Means, Johnny Appleseed: The Man, The Myth, The American Story

Johnny Appleseed (From: Wikipedia)

Means published this book in 2011, so his Google search is somewhat outdated. I searched for the phrase "Johnny Appleseed of Pot" and received just 214 results--all highly entertaining by the way. If you search without the phrase quotes, then you get 129,000 results; but this is misleading because there are a number of websites that talk about the pot, as in a metal pan, that Johnny Appleseed wore on his head--in other words, nothing to do with the other kind of "pot."

I don't know about the 1970s, but as recently as 2005, there was a "Johnny Appleseed of Pot" in Benzie County, Michigan. This specialty nurseryman would search for ideal places to plant marijuana, no matter who the landowner was, sow his seeds, then check back later to tend them. Exactly the pattern used by the real Johnny Appleseed!